


Carried a Black Heart

by bar2d2s



Category: The Flash (Comics), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, M/M, post-Blackest Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 04:25:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16674463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bar2d2s/pseuds/bar2d2s
Summary: And when you're gone, will they love you the same?





	Carried a Black Heart

**Author's Note:**

> So I knew I said that I was done writing about the pit, that it'd be all sunshine and funny little AUs from this point out, but I've got a lot of stuff going on right now, and That's Okay by The Hush Sound came on while I was writing this, so y'all get to suffer with me.
> 
> This story is set fairly soon after the events of this absolute love letter to my personal suffering, though it's not recommended reading. No seriously, I'm personally recommending that you not read this if you have any issues with uh. Well, watching a depression spiral happen in real time, straight on down to the worst place you can possibly hit when you're laid that low. This is less so than that, but still. Warning.

“ _What the **fuck**  did you do?!_” 

The only thing that keeps his fist from meeting molten tar is the knowledge of how much it would hurt, which surprises him. A week ago, Axel would have welcomed the pain, welcomed the ability to feel anything at all. But now? He doesn’t want to have to take a break from screaming to make sure he doesn’t lose the flesh on his hand.

Joey, for his part, at least managed to look ashamed. He knows exactly why Axel is here, what he’s being accused of. He knows why he most likely just lost his best friend.

“I didn’t think it would get him killed.”

Axel had always wanted him to spend more time with Owen, to get to know the other man better. And Joey had  _tried_ , really, but the whole ‘not human, gives off noxious fumes’ thing made people tend to keep away from him, and Axel’s on again/off again guy was no exception.

But then Owen had come to him looking for help. Because the dead were rising, and he’d wanted to capture his dad. Joey eventually agreed to help, even told Owen about the pit he’d be able to keep Digger in, and chained him down there. He never thought that Owen would...that he could stoop to...what he’d  _done_.

Axel, on the other hand, had given himself a project. He needed,  _needed_ , to know who Owen had thrown in with his father. Those people had friends, family. Someone needed to let their next of kin know that they weren’t coming back. He’d found a security camera feed, back when they were looking for Owen, that showed them where he was. Live video, with a backup that saved at the end of every day. He had three full days of Owen doing the worst thing imaginable to slog through, but before he could even start trying to identify victims...who did he see but Joey, preparing the pit that Owen had  _died in_. 

It was something that needed to be addressed immediately.

So there he stood in Joey’s own little hideaway, sober as a judge and shaking with the kind of rage only the deepest of betrayals can bring to the surface. Joey crouched down a bit, trying to seem small. He  _felt_  small.

“Did you know? Did you know he was planning on bringing people there for his dad to eat?” Joey shrugged. “Answer me!”

“I knew he was planning on bringing  _bad guys_  there! Shit, I even helped with a couple of them! That Sandblast guy was a  _pedophile_ , man! No one I brought him deserved to live, I swear.”

If he took a step closer, Axel would hit him. Stick a bomb in him and blow him up. Make Joey hurt in a way that would either kill him, or take him ages to heal from. But that wasn’t who he was, not anymore. He’d killed before, and it had made him sick. And those people had been _strangers_! Joey is his best friend! Was. Had been.

“I don’t want to see you anymore.” He said finally, voice dull and flat. “If you come anywhere near me ever again, I’ll figure out a way to kill you.”

“Axel-” Joey tried, but that kicked the kid fully into the meltdown he’d been sidestepping since he arrived.

“No!” He shrieked, voice rising in pitch. “If he’d just done this on his own, I could miss him and hate him as much as I wanted, but I know I’d always miss him more. Then I find out that you  _helped_ him, that he went to  _you_  when he needed to move an undead body and I just-” The sound Axel made then would have hurt his ears, if he’d had them. Instead, it just rattled around in his brain over and over until Joey wished he could actually, physically die. “Why would you help him? Why ask  _you_? Why didn’t he ask  _me_?”

Joey knew how Axel felt about Owen, had heard every little weird thought his friend had deemed to share about the guy since the moment he’d revealed that yeah, he was pretty into this new Rogue Len had scraped off the side of the road in Gotham. But he’d never really been sure just how much of those feelings were returned.

The video hadn’t had audio, so even though Axel’d seen them talking, with Owen’s back to the camera, he hadn’t heard what Owen had said. Only Joey knew, and even though it was futile at this point, he wasn’t telling. It would only make it worse.

_“Don’t tell Axel. I already know what’ll happen if Len and the others find out, and I don’t give a shit. But don’t tell Axel.” Owen had begged, after Joey had chained up his father. “If this doesn’t work...he’ll need you. He’ll need you, because he won’t be able to even **look**  at me. I won’t tell him you helped me. You were never here.”_

“I don’t know.” Joey replied, letting himself plop heavily onto the ground. But he did know. Owen had needed someone hard, heartless in a more literal sense than usual. Axel wasn’t that guy. He’d never be  _soft_ , but it would be years until he was actually as tough as he pretended to be.

Axel actually used the floor as he walked away, to try and cover up the sad little sniffles Joey heard over the shuffling sounds of his footsteps.

_“Why do you even care what he thinks? If you don’t care about the rest of the Rogues, what makes him different?” Joey had asked, and Owen’s laugh had been awful, stabbing him right to the core.  
_

_“He’s better than them. He knows how to live this life, and make it **fun**. He’s...he’s one of the only people left I care about, man.” _

Axel could never have helped Owen. Owen never would have asked him. The Black Lanterns only wanted one thing, after all.

And Owen would never have put his heart in danger.


End file.
